Our Lives in Photographs: Snow Days

Just a few winter-time gems:

View from our window during snow storm.

Sweet Miss Mae all bundled up!

Snow puppy!

Perfect capture!

This week at the CR Jackson household. . . 1.0

What a week.  Upside: two free tickets to the Roughriders hockey game on Wednesday which meant an impromptu date with my permanent roommate.  We both enjoyed the mid-week break and the chance to do something fun for el-cheapo.  

@ the game!  We had AWESOME seats.

The rest of the week was down hill from there with over tiredness and work stress.  Ben picks me up after work each day and on Friday showed up with a gorgeous bouquet of flowers on the passenger seat.  They were a complete surprise and made me a little weepy.  Such a sweet husband, I have.

We went to happy hour with Johnna, Danny & Maelynn at the Irish Democrat where I indulged in a much wanted/needed key lime pie martini.  I always love spending time with that little family. :)

Ben and I did fairly well this week with maintaining a healthy diet and exercising.  Well, sort of.  We find that it is hard to balance social life with exercising.  Since we get home a little after 5 p.m. and we generally like to be in bed around 9 or 9:30 p.m. to read and unwind from the day, it is a bit of a crunch to try and fit in both the gym and an evening activity.  For example, we normally change to go to the gym, get there around 5:45 p.m. and leave about an hour later.  Then there is supper.  And if we were going to go somewhere we'd want to shower.  Then o poop, it's time we get in bed. . .  I refuse to sacrifice having a social life just to go to the gym, so we are working on figuring out a good balance.

Going along with all that jazz, I have also ordered a couple of books to start educating myself on nutrition so I can decide what is really best for me instead of following some guru's diet plan.  I'm looking forward to those arriving in the mail soon!  One is on health and nutrition, and the other is on essential oils.  I've read on other blogs about all of the homemade junk you can make using essential oils and other expensive crap, and I kind of want to give it a try.  It is better to go natural than continue to expose myself to all the chemicals in store bought things.  I.e. natural house cleaning products, hair products, etc.

To end this post, I will leave you with a couple of recipes that I used this week and L-O-V-E.  First is a smoothie that I threw together that satiated my "need" for something sweet AND it tastes like a Tootsie Pop. Awesome!  Second is a salad that I threw together because apples and avocados were on sale and I was in the mood for some greens.

Tootsie Pop Smoothie

You need:

Frozen mixed berries

Almond milk

OJ

1 scoop chocolate whey protein powder

4 or 5 ice cubes

1 T honey

To do:

Mix everything together in a blender or smoothie maker.  Serve right away. 

Apple &Avocado Salad (for 2 people)

You need:

1 Apple, diced

2 Avocados, diced

2 oven-baked chicken boobs

Spinach

Romaine Lettuce

Walnuts

Panera Bread Poppy Seed Fat-Free Salad Dressing

To do:

Toss spinach and lettuce together.  Grab what you want for your bowl.  Add all the other crap to your liking.  EAT!

NOTE:  Let's do a little comparison here just for fun. . .

Panera Poppy Seed Dressing:

2 T = 15 Calories, 0 from fat

0 g Fat

0 mg Cholesterol

150 mg Sodium

HyVee Buttermilk Ranch: 

2 T = 120 Calories, 110 from fat

12 g Fat; 2 g Saturated Fat

10mg Cholesterol

300mg Sodium

Peace out.

Bookworm 3.0

It has been some time since I have documented my latest reads, so I think I shall use today to do that.  If I can remember what, exactly, I have read. . . 

1. The Fever Series by Karen Moning

I have previously mentioned this series and am doing so yet again.  If you want to dive into a world of Fae and other sort of mysterious beings, read this!  It has made my all time favorite series list and nothing can ever seem to top it.  Once you start reading this series it will be hard to put it down.  Moning is excellent at keeping you on your toes which can lead to 2 a.m. reading benders that make the 6 a.m. alarm an unwelcome nuisance.  

2.  The Blue Tattoo: The Life of Olive Oatman by Margot Mifflin

I have always been interested in the history and stories of Native Americans.  This books tells the story of Olive Oatman (obviously), who was taken by a tribe of Native Americans who eventually traded to the Mohaves whom she lived with for four or five years before being introduced back into white society.  During her time with the Mohaves, they tattooed Olive's face and it is speculated they accepted her into their tribe as one of their own.  Reading about her life was incredibly interesting.  I believe there is some show or movie regarding her story.  Could be interesting!

3.  The Road by Cormac McCarthy

This book was suggested to me by my sister-in-law.  She said it was the scariest book she had ever read, so of course I was intrigued.  This book is about a father and son who are trying to survive in post-apocalyptic world.  I don't believe we ever learn what really happened, but fires burned much of what once was and people have turned into homicidal cannibals.  This father and son duo are working their way to the coast where the father has hopes that life will be better there.  The have multiple encounters with other people in which the son reminds his father how to be compassionate and, well, human.  This is a dark book and a haunting read, but was definitely worth my time.  Thank you, SIL, for the suggestion!

4.  I Know This Much is True by Wally Lamb

This was an okay book about a set of identical twins and their trials in dealing with one-another.  Thomas is a paranoid schizophrenic and Dominick struggles to come to terms with his brother's changing mental condition.  Many reviews said it was a book you couldn't put down, but I wasn't overly impressed.  It was just alright.

5.  The Delirium Series by Lauren Oliver

This was an interesting series.  It wasn't as gripping as The Fever Series, but I still struggled to go to bed at a decent hour after picking it up.  In this dystopian society, it is believed that there is one cause of all irrational behavior, violence, etc. - love.  Lucky for them, they found a cure.  Essentially, a lobotomy.  One you reach a certain age you are to undergo the procedure.  Sometimes, people are 'infected' before they get the procedure and have to have the procedure early which often leads to insanity or death.  Then there are the people who escape to the Wilds.  Lena, the leading lady, has much to learn from those she encounters and has to decide for herself what her path will be.  I questioned whether this series would be worth my time at first, thinking it sounded cheesy, but it was quite good.

6.  The Divergent Series by Veronica Roth

I have written about Divergent and Insurgent before, and in October of 2013, Allegiant was released, which is the third and final novel of the series.  I was very into Divergent and Insurgent, but found Allegiant to drag on a bit.  I'm glad that I read it so that I could have closure on the series, but was not a fan of some of the happenings.  This series is definitely worth your time.  It is set in a dystopian society whose structure begins to crumble.  It has many strong female characters, which I enjoyed, and offers many characters that you can love or love to hate.  

7.  World War Z by Max Brooks

Meh.  I liked the movie better.  The book jumped around to many peoples' experiences and I generally like to be able to follow a certain character throughout a book.  Wasn't bad, but not my favorite.

8.  Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card

Great book.  If children have that certain something, they are sent to training at a young age.  At training, they learn how to fight.  Ender was one of those special kids and proved to be the best, moving up in the ranks quickly.  There is a twist in the book that everyone said I wouldn't see coming, but I figured it out.  Still worth your time though.  

I know I have read more, but I can't remember them all. . . 

Healthy Lifestyle

I want to be a bit smaller than this and TONED!
I'd take that tan back, as well.

Though it was a depressing task, I had Ben take 'before' pictures as a reference point in my fitness/health goals.  I also took measurements of my waist, thighs, arms, hips and "gut".  (The gut is not a typical measurement, but one I added in for my own benefit.).  O, and I weighed myself.  The pictures, measurements and weight will not be making an appearance on this blog until I have awesome transformation stats to post, but I think it was a good step to acquire those in order to track my progress and see the difference my lifestyle change is making.

 

I'm changing up my normal gym routine that I have used in the past.  I used to just hit whatever cardio machine caught my fancy and park it there for an hour each day.  As a friend told me, that accomplishes you getting "skinny-fat", aka skinny, but still squishy.  I want to be thin and toned, therefore, I'm hitting the weights!  I've downloaded the bodybuilding.com app on my iPhone and browsing through programs and different workouts on there that I can try.  I have always been intimidated by weightlifting, so this is a big deal to me.  Yesterday, I even crossed into the free weight section of the gym! Woot woot!  

 

Along with my fitness goal, I also want to start eating healthier as well.  I keep track of what I eat daily on the MyFitnessPal app and was disappointed to see the percentage of fat and carbs to the protein my diet.  I essentially have no idea what I'm talking about when it comes to all that jazz, so I'm going to start doing my research.  If you know any good books or blogs, please let me know!  

 

In other news, it's cold.   

 

Our Lives in Photographs: Growth in Dubai

December 2011/January 2012

June 2013

Above are two pictures in front of the fountains at the Burj Khalifa take about two years apart.  I just thought it was interesting to see how it has progressed.  The second is a little blurry of Ben and me, but you get the idea.